1). Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for processing transactions.
2). Discussion of Related Art
Merchant servers often have stores allowing consumers to use browsers within mobile devices to select goods, virtual goods or services from the merchant server and then to make a purchase from the merchant server. The consumer may be asked to select payment options, such as credit card details, payment via an account having a stored value, or have a charge placed on their phone bill. If the consumer selects their phone bill, the merchant server transmits a payment authorization to a billing server. The billing server is aligned with one or more carrier servers and places a charge on a phone bill of the consumer at the carrier server. There are methods that exist in the art for the billing server to determine a phone number and/or a carrier corresponding to a consumer mobile phone of the consumer.
The carriers in different countries have different requirement with respect to currency and price points that are supported. In addition, a merchant server may have a number of different options available for purchase at different target prices. For example, a merchant may sell 100 points, 200 points or 300 points. The different levels of service sold by the merchant server may not be in exact multiples due to carrier restrictions with respect to price points. Alternatively, a merchant may wish to provide different levels of service at different price points that are optically more favorable (e.g. $1.99, $2.99 and $3.99) or that factor in discounts for larger purchases.